Ping This

While tracking for standard banners has become relatively common for banner ads, getting direct verification for streaming advertising has sometimes proved difficult.

Seattle-based TheDial has introduced real-time audio ad verification services for its advertisers. The new technology tracks each stream as an advertisement plays, and sends a "ping" to the ad agency's server to record the activity.

TheDial is the first streaming media company to provide this service, which provides feedback to advertisers using audio-visual media on the Web.

Because ping technology tracks audio advertising performance with verifiable data, advertisers, ad agencies and ad networks can measure the cost-effectiveness of streaming media ads by the same cost-per-thousand standard used by other Internet advertising methods.

"We take advertisers one step closer to knowing exactly when their ad was heard by one of their target audiences," says Ed Bruno, vice president of ad sales for theDial. "Ping technology brings credibility to online audio advertising as a whole and positions theDial as a clear leader in the industry."

Agencies that have been reluctant to add streamed audio to their media mix can now rely on such data to show impressions and performance.

"So many advertising agencies have stood by waiting for the 'ping' to be incorporated in the streaming solution," says Graham Keenan, president of Interep New Media. "TheDial's ability to solve this dilemma will go a long way to capturing CPM revenues from these shops."